


i think your house is haunted

by iluvzuzu



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Eddie Kaspbrak Lives, F/F, Female Bill Denbrough, Female Eddie Kaspbrak, Female Eddie Kaspbrak/Female Richie Tozier, Female Mike Hanlon, Female Richie Tozier, Female Stan Uris, Human Pennywise (IT), Multi, Post-Pennywise (IT), Sharing a Bed, Trans Male Ben Hanscom
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2020-08-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 10:28:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25848082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iluvzuzu/pseuds/iluvzuzu
Summary: This is just some self-indulgent sapphic Reddie nonsense! In which the Losers all attended Derry Women's College together, Pennywise was a serial rapist/murder professor there (no clown, no aliens, no mystical indigenous curses - just a shitty guy!) and now 20 years later they have defeated him for good and have to move on with their lives. As my outline for this story says, "Uh oh, now we actually have to deal with our trauma? Shall we fall in love while self-actualizing? I do believe we shall."
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Female Eddie Kaspbrak/Female Richie Tozier - Relationship
Kudos: 11





	i think your house is haunted

**Author's Note:**

> Mentions of rape, murder, and suicide, but no actual depictions or descriptions of them.

In the squares of afternoon light coming in through the windowpanes, Richie took her time packing for the first time in her life. Adrenaline still coursed through her, her body caught in a limbo between fight and flight as she stoically folded each awful button-down and placed them gently in her duffel. She had no idea how to fold shirts; she thought probably that it would help if she buttoned them all the way up first, but that was a whole lot of effort and she didn’t have the deftest fingers or longest attention span. In fact, out of everyone she knew she thought she might actually have the clumsiest fingers and shortest attention span.  _ Oh well, _ she thought grimly. She had a host of other excellent qualities. 

A knock came at her door and she nearly shat herself. “Jesus Christ!” she said aloud, and Beverly chuckled as she entered. 

“Thought a knock would be enough warning,” she said. 

Richie shook her head, grinning. “I’m a little on-edge,” she confessed facetiously. Then she sighed, and said, almost genuinely, “Don’t think I’ll ever be off-edge again, to be honest.” 

Bev shook her head and sat on the end of Richie’s hotel bed. “Me either,” she confessed. “Not that I was doing so well before.” 

“I was!” Richie insisted. “I’m an awesome compartmentalizer. Super great at not thinking about things.” 

Beverly laughed. “Healthy,” she teased. 

“Oh, I never said that,” Richie scoffed. “Just easier, more convenient. The frozen TV dinners of coping mechanisms.” 

“So you headed back to LA?” Bev asked, nodding at the duffle. 

“See, Bevvie, it’s questions like that that make it hard for me to eat my mental TV dinners,” Richie complained. She sat too, on the edge of the desk beside the windows. Beverly looked tired, but calmer than Richie was feeling. Chalk it up to her newfound love of ol Hanscom, Richie thought. She supposed it made sense, though she couldn’t help but be resentful about the blooming heterosexuality of it all. Even if Ben was trans, that wasn’t a free pass to be straight.  _ Maybe that’s what I need,  _ Richie thought, _ some suave and quiet boyfriend like Ben. _ No more aching over her fingertips brushing those of some funky pansexual blue-haired Trader Joe’s cashier and thinking,  _ I just want to be  _ like _ her, I just want to  _ be _ her, I don’t  _ want _ her, I  _ don’t. As much as Richie resented healthy relationships between men and women, she also resented queer people who presented themselves confidently and proudly. Fuck that.  _ Don’t they know,  _ she’d think, _ don’t they know it’s still dangerous out here for people like— _ you? Richie blew air through her lips in a raspberry. “I guess I have to,” she said to Beverly. “Where else would I go?” 

“I’m going to Nebraska,” Bev said cheekily. “Maybe there’s some Nebraska for you too.” 

Richie stared at her blankly. “Are you trying to get me to start a poly throuple sisterwife thing with Hanscom? I don’t think I’m his type.” 

Beverly snorted. “Beep beep, Rich.” 

“Then what?” Richie demanded. But then Eddie rapped on the open hotel room door and crossed the threshold, and whoa nelly TV dinners weren’t going to cover this one. 

“Hey,” Eddie said, folding her arms over her chest. She was freshly showered, her cropped hair damp and smelling of citrus and eucalyptus, a little fluffy around her ears. She had a clean bandage on her cheek, the medical tape tugging at her pinkened skin. “Thought I heard you two giggling in here.” 

Richie was going to go full feral in a second. Eddie was wearing a white linen polo-type shirt, Vacation Mom Chic, and Richie felt like she had flies buzzing around her own shitpile of a body in comparison. “Lady Edith!” Richie exclaimed, going full (terrible) Cockney. “Right bloody elegant, aren’t we, duchess?”

Eddie scowled as Beverly snickered. “Do not call me Edith or I will literally murder you. And you’ve seen me in action now, so you better believe I can do it.” 

It was true; the last week had been violence after violence in the name of justice for the old squad. Derry Women’s University was now serial-killer-free for the time being, in part thanks to Eddie stabbing the guy with a fireplace poker. She took a beating back and got a knife in the face herself, but Richie could never again tease that Eddie couldn’t handle herself in a fight. “Please, Xena Warrior Princess, don’t hurt me!” Richie wailed. “I beg you, Diana of Themyscira, spare me!” 

Eddie rolled her eyes. “I just wanted to see if you guys wanted to grab a late lunch. Billie’s about to get on the road, but Mike says she’s up for diner food. Breakfast for dinner or whatever.” 

Richie bit her lip faux-sexily and gave Eddie her best bedroom eyes. “Oh baby, you know I love a breakfast for dinner!” 

“The only sausage you’ll take,” Eddie said mildly, and Richie sputtered. Bev was shaking with silent laughter. 

Richie said, “Can I get a beep beep for Kaspbrak, please?” 

“Behave, Eddie,” Beverly said, still shaking with laughter. 

Eddie bit back a grin, but she looked all too pleased. “How’s packing going?” she asked Richie.

“Great,” Richie said flatly, still floored by the sausage comment. It seemed that helping shove her assaulter’s dead body into the ravine behind their college dorm building had done wonders for Eddie’s self-esteem. “I’m very efficient. Still have room for you, Eddie-bug, if you want to climb in.” 

“A near-irresistible offer, I’m sure, but I have a flight to New York tonight. Red eye,” she added when Richie quirked her head. 

“So soon!” Richie said, too enthusiastically. “Well, give my regards to Broadway. Breakfast, then?” 

“Sure,” Eddie said, eyes lingering on Richie’s bag in a way that made Richie want to tear her own face off for no good reason. God, it was like being in college again, where Eddie could do basically nothing and Richie would feel rage without knowing why. Between junior and senior year when they all did summer session, that was it. They’d all had near misses with Dr. Wise, the astrophysics professor who had methodically stalked and hunted girls across campus whom he then raped and killed. Some of their misses had been nearer than others, though. As far as they knew, Billie, Beverly, Richie, Eddie, Mikayla, and Ben were the only survivors of his wrath. Billie’s sister Georgie hadn’t made it, for one. Then there were girls like that cunt Henny Bowers and dear sweet Steph Uris who had made it out the first time, but not the second. Richie’s heart panged to think of Steph now.  _ If she had just held on— _

But that wasn’t fair and Richie knew it. It was because of Steph that Dr. Wise had ended up in prison for the last 20 years on an unrelated charge in the first place. Of course he went after her first when he was released. Of course he sent her those notes, threats against Steph and her husband. He’d probably planned to pick them all off one by one. It was only Steph’s suicide that brought the rest of them back together in the first place. 

With Beverly at her side, Richie followed Eddie down the stairs into the small lobby of the inn. Ben, Mike, and Billie were there waiting for them. “I’m going,” Bill said, hoisting her travel bag over her shoulder. “But I’ll be in touch.” 

“Yeah, you’ll have to pay up this time when you turn more of our life stories into a book again,” Richie teased, and Billie grinned. 

“Only if you get me tickets to your next show,” she said. “Or Amy Schumer’s, I’m not picky.” 

“ _ Amy Schumer _ ,” Richie scoffed. “You  _ would  _ like Amy Schumer, Denbrough, you basic-ass bitch.” She flung her arms around Billie and sniffled loudly. “I am gonna miss your basic ass though!” 

The rest of the gang piled onto the hug, even Eddie who typically wasn’t a fan of intimate group space. Billie ended up whispering a private goodbye to Beverly before she departed, something which made Ben clench his jaw and avert his eyes. “Don’t worry, dude,” Richie said slyly. “She’s definitely all yours.” 

Ben scrunched his nose at her in response. “Oh, I know,” he said. “Sometimes just looking at them together makes me uh—what’s nostalgic in a bad way?”

Richie laughed. “Uh, traumatized?”

Ben nodded, mouth curving a little. “Yeah, that’s the one.”

“But she’s going home with you, dude, that’s the clincher,” Richie said, clapping Hanscom on the back. 

Ben simply smiled at her in response, but it was so genuine that Richie could almost feel its warmth on her face.  _ Fuck it,  _ she thought,  _ straights can have rights too. _

At the diner, Eddie had climbed into a booth but Richie made a point to climb over her lap and shove her over so that Richie was on the inside. Eddie, for her part, made it as easy as possible for her out of sheer public shame. “Why do you act like such an adolescent,” she chastised as Richie elbowed her in the face. “You literally could have just asked me to switch seats but instead you’re getting your muddy parking lot shoes on my nice jeans—“

“Do you have not-nice jeans?” Richie interrupted. “You have like, ripped-up secondhand relaxed-fit boyfriend jeans?” 

“I have jeans for a variety of different occasions,” she said primly. “Dark jeans for casual Fridays, light wash jeans for spring outings—“

“Spring outings!” Richie repeated. “Mary Poppins, is that you?” 

“What, you’ve never been to like, a farmer’s market?” Eddie exploded. “No, that’s right, of course you haven’t, you're probably lucky if you get your vegetables from a can of Chef Boyardee.” 

“I thought you were such a girlboss business bitch you wouldn’t have time for farmer’s markets,” Richie said, relaxing back into the vinyl cushions, which squeaked under her. Bev and Ben were sitting across from them, and Mikey had pulled a chair up to the end of the table. She was watching them over her menu, eyebrow raised in a smirk as Eddie said, “I  _ make  _ time for farmer’s markets. It’s important to shop local, organic. No GMOs, no gluten—“

“Oh, are you on the LB diet?” Richie asked. 

Eddie snapped her head around. “LB, what’s that? No, I’m not on any specific diet, diets are fads, Richie, I just have a health regimen that specifies—“

“It stands for Little Bitch,” Richie said, and the table exploded into laughter. 

“Just because I care about my gut flora does not mean I’m a little bitch!” Eddie howled. 

“Does your gut flora just love your three-coffee mornings? Yeah I saw you,” Richie added at Eddie’s look of shocked embarrassment. “Don’t you have acid reflux?” 

“Well, you have IBS,” Eddie shot back, picking up her menu and feigning reading it even though Richie knew she was probably still fuming about her jeans. 

Richie picked her jaw up off the floor and said to Ben, Mike, and Beverly, “How does she know about my IBS?” This was, of course, a joke, because Richie never shut up about her IBS. “Sheesh, a girl diarrheas three times a week and suddenly EVERYONE knows about the IBS…” 

Breakfast-for-late-lunch went as well as could be expected. Richie made herself a little sick by trying to use all the different flavors of syrup on her already insane cinnamon chocolate banana pancake monstrosity— _ fuck being old,  _ she thought—but everyone was cheerful and nostalgic, finally allowed to relax after 20 years. 

Eventually Ben and Beverly announced that they had to get on the road, and Eddie also stood. Mikayla shot Richie a look and Richie mouth-farted at her in response. 

Goodbyes were said, promises to see each other soon made, and the pit of despair in Richie’s gut just widened and widened. After Ben and Bev’s departure, Mikey muttered something about the restroom and shot away from the table like a repelling magnet. Eddie looked down at where Richie sat, now on the table’s edge. She didn’t know why she was always doing that, sitting on tables. She was looking down at her muddy high tops but she could feel Eddie’s eyes on her. She wasn’t going to say something first, though. That would be lame. If Eddie wanted to say something she could start— “We never really talked about how you saved my life,” is how Eddie started. 

Richie choked on her spit as her head shot up. “I mean, you know, the work is its own reward, I don’t need thanks, I’m just doing my job, ma’am.” 

Eddie chuckled uncomfortably, her neck and ears going red as she looked off to her left. “Thanks anyway,” she said demurely. “I uh, you know, kind of like being alive, after all.” 

Richie’s heart was in an iron fist in her throat. “Of course, dude. Like, I—obviously, you saved me too, even steven. Quid pro quo. Tradesies-backsies.” 

Eddie was fiddling with the strap of her bag, and she looked back at Richie to say quietly, “I don’t want to go back,” which knocked the air entirely out of Richie’s lungs. 

“So don’t,” she said immediately. “Fuck Melvin or whatever his name is.” 

“Mervyn,” Eddie grumbled. “My fucking husband’s name is Mervyn.” 

“Pervy Mervy, yeah, that’s what I said,” Richie rambled. “He’s obviously just a reboot of your freak-ass dad, dude, just dump him, live your best life.” 

“What, I’m just supposed to get divorced?” Eddie fretted, starting to pace a little. “I can’t get divorced, he like, manages me! He’s the only one who’s going to put up with, you know, all this—“ 

“Bullshit,” Richie said fiercely. “No, I’m serious, that’s bullshit,” she added when Eddie started to object. “You’re literally a fucking catch and if he makes you feel crazy and small and unwantable and not good enough then he fucking sucks.” 

Eddie’s eyebrows were taught, face screwed up in despair. “I don’t know how to be alone,” she said quietly. 

“You came back from the fucking dead, Eddie,” Richie said, reaching out her hand to grab Eddie’s, to stop her from pacing. “You don’t have to go back to a life you hate. And you won’t be alone,” she added emphatically. “We’re all here. Loser Girl Squad for life!” she chanted. “Plus Ben,” she amended. “Who is still a loser but no longer a girl. And actually, isn’t that much of a loser now, either, did you see his  _ arms? _ ”

“But what if it’s like last time,” she sputtered out frantically, eyes cast downward, gripping Richie’s hand back tightly. “What if it’s too much of a reminder to see each other and we can’t handle it and we all lose touch again?” 

“Well, then,  _ I’m _ here,” she said, giving Eddie’s hand a squeeze. Their eyes locked and the electricity, goddamn it, felt like a thousand volts straight to Richie’s heart. Or whatever’s a lot of volts, Richie had no idea if a thousand is a lot of volts. A whole bunch of fucking volts shot between their fucking eyeballs, man, and straight into Richie’s goddamn heart. “ _ I’ll _ handle it,” she said, mouth dry. 

“Well this has been nice,” Mike said, coming up behind Eddie and clapping her on the shoulder in a way that almost sent Eddie into a fighting stance. At any rate, she snatched her hand back from Richie and flushed, turning around. 

Mikey was grinning at Richie, who was scowling incredulously back. “Yeah, Mikayla, it has been, thanks,” she responded dryly. “Alright lads, we out?”

They all walked to the parking lot together and Mikey hugged them both in turn. “Don’t be a stranger,” she said softly. 

“You’re really going to stay here?” Richie asked for about the fourth time since hearing about Mike’s plans. 

She nodded. “I think it’ll be a lot nicer this time around.” 

Eddie’s brows were drawn together as her face settled into a sorrowful smile. “Stay in touch, Mike,” she said, and Richie nodded. 

“I will,” Mike promised, “and good luck to you both.” With that, she got in her car and waved to them as she pulled out of the lot. 

Eddie turned to Richie and said, “My flight’s at ten.” 

Richie, feeling suddenly bold in the wake of the last of their friends, reached out to grab Eddie’s wrist to look at her watch. After staring at it for a couple seconds she said, “I can’t fucking tell time,” and dropped her hand with a gentle swipe of her thumb against Eddie’s wrist. “I miss your calculator watch.” 

“Me too!” Eddie said fervently. “Anyway it’s 6:30 now. I was thinking of getting to the airport by 8:00 so I’ve got time, but…” 

“But,” Richie repeated. They stood just looking at each other. Richie  _ had  _ to assume that this wasn’t one-sided, even if she didn’t understand what her side even was, because Eddie was acting just as fucking spastic as she was. You go tradesies-backsies saving each other’s lives and something shifts. Forget that there was already something going on in college, forget that they used to fall asleep in each other’s beds and wake up drooling into each other’s necks with their legs tangled together, forget that they used to share clothes and accessories and flirt with the same boys just to trash talk them together. “Okay,” Richie said, tearing her gaze away, surveying the busy street beside the parking lot and shoving her hands in her pockets, shuffling her shoes in the gravel of the broken asphalt. “Okay, hear me out.” 

“Okay,” Eddie said. 

“Okay,” Richie said again. “What if you… don’t… go?” 

Eddie let out a choked laugh. “What the hell would I do instead?” she retorted, but rather than sounding mad she sounded almost desperate. 

_ Me,  _ said Richie’s brain, but even  _ her  _ trash mouth wasn’t that bold. “Anything, anything you want,” she said. “Look at how nice your jeans are, you must have savings. Move somewhere new, find a new job that appreciates you, a new everything. New husband even, or whatever.” 

Eddie was shaking her head, but Richie could see in her eyes that she was considering it. “What am I going to say?” she murmured. 

“You already ran away,” Richie said. “Easy part’s over. Why does Melville even think you left in the first place?” 

“Mervyn,” Eddie corrected. “I told him it was a family emergency, my uncle, something.”

“And I know either he hasn’t been calling or you haven’t been answering, because I’ve been with you all week and you haven’t touched your phone once,” Richie pointed out. 

“God,” Eddie suddenly sobbed, collapsing to the curb and burying her face in her hands. “I’m a fucking terrible wife.” 

“Who cares!” Richie exploded. “He doesn’t own you, you don’t owe him shit!”

“Fucking hell, Rachel,  _ I  _ care!” Eddie exploded back. “Just because you’ve never committed to anything in your life—“ 

She stopped herself, but it still hit Richie hard. First of all, getting full-named was always traumatizing, she now kind of understood how Eddie felt when she called her Edith—even though in Richie’s mind she only ever did it out of antagonistic affection—and then the rest of it. The truth of it. 

Eddie was already backtracking into apology, but Richie just nodded. “No, you’re right,” she said, waving Eddie off. “I don’t know what it’s like to have a husband and a home, you’re right.” 

“Fuck, Rich,” she said, pressing her fists against her closed eyelids. “You’re right too.” She inhaled through her nose and exhaled through her mouth a couple times, and Richie, suddenly thoroughly exhausted, sat down on the curb beside her. “I don’t want to go back. I don’t want to see my husband ever again. I don’t care about my shitty fancy job or my shitty fancy apartment. I literally just want to—I want—“ she struggled for the words before burying her face in her hands again. 

“Tell me,” Richie murmured, lifting her hand to trace Eddie’s pixie hairline at the top of her neck, something she’d been aching to do since she first laid eyes on the haircut. Eddie shivered but leaned into the touch, and turned her bleary eyes up to Richie’s. 

“I don’t know,” Eddie murmured, turning her face away again too quickly. “I just want to like, sit in the sun.” 

“Hey, would you look at that,” Richie said gently, nodding at the golden sky and the sun on its way down. “You’re doing it, babe.” 

Eddie chuckled. “Wow, yeah, this crumbling parking lot is exactly what I was picturing.” 

Richie pinched Eddie’s earlobe lightly, and skimmed the edge of her bandage with her fingertip as she dropped her hand. “What else?” she prompted. 

“My god,” Eddie said. “You know what, I just really want to go to sleep? Is that insane?” 

“You had to have your heart restarted a couple days ago, I think you’re entitled to early bedtime,” Richie said. “Come on, you can crash in my room at the inn. I still have it for a couple days because I’m uh, also avoiding my life.” She stood and reached out her hand to Eddie, who took it and stood herself. 

“I’m sorry I said that thing,” Eddie said nervously, following Richie to her car. 

“I already forgot, dude, it’s cool,” Richie said, heart cracking a little with every beat. 

“I said it because I’m bitter that you have this free life where you’re not beholden to anyone, even the way you grew up…” she trailed off, shaking her head as she settled into the passenger seat. “I know there’s no debating the pros and cons of it.” 

“By ‘it’ do you mean an incredibly stifled childhood versus a basically neglected one?” Richie snorted, pulling out onto the busy street. “Yeah, who knew the stick had two short ends?” 

Eddie let out a little laugh. “Anyway. I mean it, Rich, I don’t think that about you. That you can’t commit. You’re the most loyal fucking person I know.” 

“Besides Ben, right? And Mikayla? Because unless you qualify that I’m just going to think you’re lying,” Richie said, rounding a curve too fast and making Eddie grit her teeth and grip the ceiling grab handle. “Beverly too, actually, is very loyal. The only one of us I think I’m more loyal than is Billie, and that’s just because you just know she cheats on her fiancé—“ 

“The fiancé probably cheated on her first,” Eddie argued, “you know how those Hollywood types are.” 

“Yeah I literally do because I’ve spent the last three years living in LA,” Richie laughed. “You know how many probably engaged people I made out with in like, gastropub karaoke bars just because someone was feeling sexy and underappreciated?” 

“Like, two?” Eddie guessed, surprisingly accurately, but Richie did not dignify it with a response. 

“Anyway, what were we talking about?” she said instead.

“I was apologizing you fucking moron,” Eddie said rolling her eyes. “And also complimenting you. Two once in a lifetime opportunities and you want to waste it by being like, pedantic and anecdotal.” 

“It’s embarrassing to me, when you’re genuine,” Richie said affectionately. “It’s so much easier to actually believe that you don’t like me and that my every move has to be strategically based around earning your approval.” 

“That’s the shittiest thing you’ve ever said, take that back!” Eddie cried out. “Don’t fucking say shit like that—what the HELL—“ she helped as Richie accidentally swerved again. 

“Like I said,” Richie said, feeling her ears and cheeks go hot. “Any sincerity might make me legitimately crash the car.” 

“You’re a real piece of work, you know that?” Eddie demanded. “Go to fucking therapy, until then I have nothing to say to you.” 

Richie blustered. “Excuse me, go to therapy? Do you go to therapy, Mrs. Marvin Q. Martian?” 

“I did, a bit,” Eddie said nonchalantly, and Richie sped through a yellow. “That was a damn close call, are you fucking colorblind?” 

“I’m direction-blind,” Richie quipped, “I thought the middle light was on top.” 

“That would have made it a red light, imbecile,” Eddie moaned into her hands. “Are we almost there? Because I tried death and I wasn’t a fan.” 

“We’re literally here,” Richie said, rolling smoothly into the inn’s parking lot and then scuffing her front bumper on the wheel stop. 

They bickered about nothing all the way back to the room, until Eddie got caught in a loop about whether she was going to shower or not. “You showered before dinner,” Richie pointed out, and Eddie said, rather accusatorily, “Why do you know that?” 

“Your hair was wet before,” Richie said. “Why are you acting like I’m some kind of pervert just because I saw your hair was wet?” 

“I just never expect you to notice things, you give off this vibe of willful ignorance,” Eddie said, tugging her shoes and bougie no-show socks off and setting them all very precisely at the foot of the bed. 

“Oh, I will own that,” Richie said. “That is absolutely the vibe I try to give off, you hit that nail right on the head.”

“But we were in that crusty diner and frankly I don’t know what goes on in your car,” Eddie argued. “Plus how can I put on clean clothes to sleep in if my body isn’t clean?” 

“So you went to therapy for OCD or something else?” Richie deadpanned. “Please tell me it was for something else.” 

“I literally hate you,” Eddie grumbled. 

“Now that’s what I’m talking about,” Richie said with a grin. “Feed me, Seymour.” 

“What?” Eddie demanded. “What the fuck did you just say to me?”

“My self-hatred is a big alien plant who needs blood, dude,” Richie said, 

“Maybe  _ you _ should take a shower,” Eddie said thoughtfully. 

“Hello, what the fuck?” Richie said to her own reflection in the mirror above the vanity as if looking into the camera on  _ The Office _ . “Rude bitch…” 

“I’m just thinking, if we’re going to share the bed,” Eddie continued, turning with a frown to survey the queen mattress.

“Share the—“ Richie began. 

“Oh, was that not the fucking plan?” Eddie said heatedly, rounding back on Richie with her hands on her hips. “Where else were you planning to sleep?” When Richie hesitated, she continued, eyes bulging, “Were you just  _ not going to go to fucking sleep tonight, _ Rachel Tozier? I’m going to murder you, I swear to Jesus, Mary, et al—“ 

“Anger management?” Richie guessed. “Was anger management the thing you went to therapy for?” 

Eddie began pushing her towards the bathroom door. “Get in the shower, maniac, and don’t forget to wash behind the ears.” 

So Richie showered, more confused than probably ever before in her life, including the time she almost had a threeway with a married couple and had to back out because she kept panic-puking. She even washed her hair, which she rarely did, just to be clean for Eddie.  _ Be clean for Eddie _ , she cringed.  _ Fucking embarrassing. _

When she dressed and came back out, Eddie was already in the bed, wearing one of Richie’s Hawaiian shirts from her bag. “It smelled clean,” she shrugged when Richie couldn’t stop staring. “I didn’t think you’d mind, we used to share clothes all the time.” 

Richie had to look somewhere else because Eddie was in her shirt in her bed. She wandered to the window and didn’t say anything, just toweled off her curls and looked out, putting her glasses back on as she went. There wasn’t much to see at night on the second story of a relatively suburban hotel, but it gave her something to focus on. “That’s fine,” she said eventually, about the shirt. 

“Rich,” Eddie said, so softly that Richie had to swallow a lump in her throat before she turned to look at her. “I feel like,” she started, but couldn’t finish. 

Richie nodded. “Dude, I know,” she said hoarsely. She gingerly moved to sit on the side of the bed and reached her hand out for Eddie’s. 

“There’s a lot to say,” Eddie finally said, flicking her eyes up from their joined hands to meet Richie’s. “But I’m tired of talking.” 

“Yeah,” Richie agreed, rubbing her thumb on the outside of Eddie’s wrist. “For once, me too.” 

Eddie looked at their fingers again, twitching her fingertips against Richie’s palm hesitantly. “I’m not going to make my flight,” she said firmly. 

“Good,” Richie replied, just as firmly. 

“Am I doing the right thing?” she asked, voice breaking slightly. 

Richie lifted Eddie’s hand to her cheek and pressed it there, unable to do the thing she wanted to do and kiss the back of it. “Yeah,” she said. “You are.” She let the hand fall to the comforter. “Because it’s what you want.” 

“Will you—“ Eddie started. “Can we go to sleep?” 

Richie found herself unholding her breath and nodding, crawling over and slipping into the sheets beside Eddie. They murmured a couple things more back and forth, inconsequential things about pillow space and arm positioning, and eventually Richie found herself drifting off to the sound of Eddie’s snuffly little snores and the drone of the AC as it kicked on. 


End file.
